A new digital camera has leaked from Sony called the RX1. The fixed-lens camera appears to be very compact yet has very impressive specifications for a “pocketable” camera.

The rumors claim that the camera will have a full-frame sensor and will sport a Carl Zeiss 35mm F/2.0 compact lens. Speculation points to price tag of around $3,000, which seems like a lot for camera that doesn't support interchangeable lenses.

The only details we know are from the photographs. The camera has a hot shoe for flash or other accessories, a pop-up flash, and a control wheel on the top for aperture and other settings.

This digital camera is expected to compete against the Fuji X100 and the Leica X2. The official announcement of the camera is expected to happen on Wednesday, September 12.

Would you buy a $3,000 digital camera without support for interchangeable lenses?

Better for still studio photos, maybe, yes. I personally have never used a camera from Hasselblad (and likely never will) so I can't give an informed opinion on their quality (high price doesn't always mean quality). I do see that they have an official Ferrari endorsed camera though (I wonder how much they had to pay to do that).

I don't see anything they sell that has a faster shutter than 1/800th so they may be better for studio work (again I have never used one), but for action there are faster shutter cameras that fill that use better.

'Better' varies on usage, so to say "there are better cameras than Nikon and Canon" isn't something I completely agree with.

Not just for pros, if you really want professional looking nature scenes like the pros you need the big lens and sensor. Our point and shoots or phones work pretty well for good family pics and what not, but they just really hold out for those spectacular shots.

Actually, it could. With a larger sensor, you can go with ISO 400 or ISO 800 and get no noise at all. But that's just theory, in practice sports events are packed with Nikons and Canons. Not sure if because of shutter speed, the need for zoom (larger sensors have a wider FOV, quite the opposite of what you need for sports) or just plain cost.

big frame, slower shutter is good for stills and low light - the hasselblad would be great for capturing outdoor evening scenes or really minute detail, for example.

a faster shutter like that available on SLRs (especially nice ones) is good for stopping motion, especially in good light (F2.0 lens on 1/6400 shutter at ISO 800 at an effective focal length of 400mm, for example).

He probably has a medium format camera from Hasselblad, like the HD4-60 or something a bit fancier maybe, like the HDR-200MS. These cameras cost in the $40k region, give or take. Or if he does video, it's probably RED camera. Anyways, this is like comparing apples and diamond-encrusted oranges.

It's conceivable that a professional with funding (not his own) or money to burn personally could use such a "point and shoot" pocket-ish sized camera alongside his regular gear, as a supplement.

But yeah...the lack of interchangeable lenses really is the Achilles' heel of the RX1. For the price, I would still go with a D800, or if it wasn't over 1k more expensive, the 5D Mark III.

Nikon and Canon reach the 'pro-sumer' level at best with their offerings. There's an entire realm of what is truly 'professional' far beyond small-formats like 35mm and apc-sized clones.

It's confusing, though.. Having been a serious-amateur photographer years before the digital evolution, I certainly know better. Nowadays, though.. most think that all it takes to be a 'professional' photographer is a mid-range dSLR, a macbook, and a copy of Adobe Lightroom.

They don't even teach Photoshop in most photography courses any more, opting instead for Lightroom due to it's cheaper price and, well -- 90% of students just aren't capable of anything more complicated. Personally, I think any 2 year course should have a required solid year of film-based photography classes prior to touching digital, just to teach the necessary basics that make the rest seem like a piece of cake (spend hours developing one roll of film into prints, you'll learn quick not to just take hundreds of snapshots and instead focus on taking one good picture). One recent graduate I know doesn't even know how aperture and shutter speed affect exposure..